Officials say nuclear sites will not be left in a hazardous state because international radiological standards will still be upheld.
Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

More contaminated soil and rubble will remain at the sites of Britain’s old nuclear power plants rather than going to a dedicated dump, under government-backed proposals.

But officials said that the sites would not be left in a hazardous state because international radiological standards would still be upheld.

They argued the changes would mean former nuclear sites could be cleaned up more quickly, less waste would need to be moved around the country, and decommissioning would be cheaper than under today’s regime.

Experts were split over the proposals. Some said that it showed the UK did not know what to do with its nuclear waste, but others welcomed it as a way of saving money.

The government said a change to the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, outlined in a discussion paper last week, is needed now because several sites will reach the final stage of cleanup in the early 2020s, such as Winfrith in Dorset and Dounreay in Caithness.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) currently oversees the licensing of 17 nuclear sites that are slated for decommissioning and cleanup. The final stage involves dealing with large amounts of rubble, concrete, brick and soil, some of which is radioactive and designated low level waste (LLW). That waste currently goes to the UK’s only LLW site, at Drigg in Cumbria, which is almost full.

Industry, the regulator and the government want that last stage of the process to no longer be the ONR’s responsibility, and for the LLW to instead stay at the former nuclear sites, which range from old power plants to research facilities.

“It is possible that local communities may be concerned that this would mean the site being left in an unacceptable or hazardous state. This would not be the case,” the paper said, because the changes would not go ahead if they were inconsistent with the radiological standards of health watchdog Public Health England.

Malcolm Grimston, a senior research fellow at Imperial College London, said the current system was unwieldy and the change would be a better use of money. “While we continue to treat radioactivity as if it was in a different category of hazards, we perpetuate this idea that radioactivity is more dangerous [than other hazardous material], which the science doesn’t back up.”

He added that the level of radioactivity was low enough that local communities should not be worried at more waste being left at sites after their cleanup. “Even if people decided to eat this stuff or set up house and live as close as they could, there would be no detectable change in the cancer rate.”

But nuclear critics said the changes showed the government lacked a long-term plan on nuclear waste.

“It’s another example of how much of the stuff we have and we don’t really know what we’re going to do with it, we’re just leaving it [the LLW]. It’s an appalling choice,” said Dr Paul Dorfman of University College London, who was involved in the decommissioning of Harwell in Oxfordshire, a former nuclear research site which is now partly used as a business park.

“The notion of the acceptability about LLW being just low level: you can say low, but this stuff is dangerous. You don’t want this stuff near you,” he said.

Under the proposed changes, former sites would no longer be considered “nuclear” at the end of their cleanup, and therefore no longer the responsibility of the ONR. Regulation would fall instead to the Health and Safety Executive and environment agencies.

“What the government is suggesting is, they’re turning off the liability but they’re not turning off the risk or hazard,” said John Large, a nuclear consultant who has advised the UK government on nuclear issues.

He said one of the drivers behind the change might be the pressure on the ONR from regulating and overseeing the new nuclear reactors planned in the UK, such as EDF’s new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and the regulator wanting to lighten its load. “I suspect the ONR are cutting their cloth here, I suspect they are hard pushed,” he said.

The government’s discussion paper said the changes could not be made without legislation being amended to allow the ONR to relinquish regulation of sites in their final stages of decommissioning. A public consultation on the proposal is planned in 2017.